ROCK SPRINGS – It’s not unheard of for Western Wyoming Community College to recognize multiple Outstanding Graduates at its annual Commencement exercises, and this year’s graduation ceremony on Friday, May 13, will feature two: engineering graduate Edison Elder, of Rock Springs, and history graduate Melia Dayley, of Sugar City, Idaho. Both graduates will deliver addresses at the 7 p.m. ceremony in Rushmore Gymnasium, and both have had significant and lasting impacts on the Western campus.
Elder and Dayley were selected from among seven Outstanding Graduate nominees at the Western Awards Banquet on April 28. Other nominees for the honor included: Brandon Davies, of West Valley, Utah; Tanner Petersen, of Farson; Andrea Huntsman, of Heber City, Utah; Brandon Radosevich, of Lyman; and Courtney Ward, of Rock Springs.
Both Dayley and Elder have made the most of their years at Western, and their departure to four-year campuses – University of Wyoming for him, Brigham Young University for her – will leave new and returning Western students with impressive legacies to build upon.
Dayley is a member of the Honors Program, a Mustang soccer player and team captain, president of the Latter-day Saints Single Adult (LDSSA) Club, and a member of the Sweet Memories Historical Research Group. She was also one of two Western students – along with Outstanding Graduate nominee Petersen – to receive the Outstanding Legislative Intern Award for her service to state lawmakers during the Wyoming Legislative Session earlier this year.
In spite of all this, Dayley said she felt genuinely surprised to hear that she had been nominated for the Outstanding Graduate award, to say nothing of hearing her name called as a winner on April 28.
“Honestly, I was very surprised,” Dayley said. “I’m involved in a lot of things, but I never thought of myself as ‘above and beyond,’ or outstanding. And hearing all of the other people who were nominated…I know Ed pretty well. I nominated him. I was like, ‘Edison is an amazing person and student, and he definitely deserves it.’ And all of those other people up there… I know those students, and they work so hard. Any one of us could have gotten it, definitely.
“It’s a great honor, I think, that the faculty and students and staff see me as someone that they want to represent the college,” she continued. “I love this school, and I’ve really worked hard for it, and I really want to give back to the school. So I think it’s just a symbol of what I’ve done here, and of everything that Western has done for me.”
Elder, an engineering major, is a member of the Mustang Radio Club and an on-air personality whose morning show, “First Cup,” airs live from 7 – 8 a.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on KWWM 91.3 FM. He is also president of three campus clubs and acting president of Western’s Phi Theta Kappa National Honor Society chapter.
“I think it’s the highest honor that a student can achieve,” Elder said of the Outstanding Graduate award. “Basically, it means that all of your efforts throughout the course of the last two years, or however long you’ve been at Western, have been noticed and appreciated, and that everything that the individual does for the school and the community has been appreciated and noticed. That’s what it means to me.”
Like so many students, both Dayley and Elder have been plenty visible on campus and in the community during their time at Western.
As a Mustang student-athlete, Dayley volunteers for many events with local schools and organizations, and her LDSSA and Honors Program activities also include local service projects such as food drives and fundraisers. LDSSA, for example, teamed with the Associated Student Government this semester for a campus blood drive. Dayley also devoted between 12 and 14 hours a day to her legislative internship duties during the most recent session of the Wyoming Legislature, all the while conducting historical research for multiple class projects and a major research presentation as part of the Sweet Memories Historical Research Group. She also has a campus job that she works for 12 hours each week.
“I think you have to find what you love,” Dayley said. “If you’re doing what you love, if you’re investing time into something, then it becomes worth your time. I love all of the organizations that I am a part of, so it becomes easy. It’s not a chore to me to have to go and do homework or have to go do service or have to go to practice. I love doing all those things. Once you find what you love, then nothing becomes a burden. It becomes what you look forward to every day.”
Dayley came to Western with thoughts of becoming a teacher, but it was her love of history that ultimately decided her academic path.
“History was not my first choice as a major, because I thought the marketability of a history major isn’t that great,” said Dayley, who also hopes to pick up a second major in political science at BYU. “But I thought, ‘This is what I love to do, and so I want to spend time with that.’”
Elder, a longtime hockey player, is familiar to many radio listeners as one of the voices of Mustang Radio, but he’s also president of the Mustang Radio Club and of the Rink Rat Club, which introduces Western students to the joys of skating at the Rock Springs Recreation Center. Elder and the Club masterminded a successful Turkey Curling event at the Center last November in support of a food drive for the Food Bank of Sweetwater County. Elder is also president of the school’s Engineers Without Borders outreach chapter.
Elder said he attended Western not only because it was his hometown college, where he had already completed some college credits during high school, but also because he knew that the small class sizes and hands-on learning opportunities would prepare him for academic and career success.
There are a lot of really cool opportunities on this campus that you won’t find at other community colleges,” – Edison Elder
“Things like hands-on learning, getting to build your own projects, competing in things like the Wind Racer competition, as well as getting involved with organizations like Engineers Without Borders, and giving back in more of a service-learning type of way so that you actually get to see what you’re going into before you ever graduate. It’s the small class sizes, the personal relationships with your instructors, and actually getting to apply the material hands-on. That’s the best thing about Western.”
Elder expects that his legacy at Western will include a thriving chapter of Engineers Without Borders, which he founded this year with a small group of like-minded engineering students. The group is an outreach chapter in cooperation with the University of Wyoming’s chapter, which was necessary because the global organization does not ordinarily approve chapters at two-year colleges. Western is the only one of Wyoming’s seven two-year colleges to feature an Engineers Without Borders chapter on its campus.
“We work exclusively with the University of Wyoming on their existing projects, and we give community college students the ability to go and work on these projects, which are global projects,” explained Elder, who is also vice president of the Engineering Science Club. “You get to work with communities around the world that look to improve their infrastructure or just projects that will improve their quality of life: water, roads, energy, things like that. It’s a way for students that are interested in giving back and getting involved before they get to the university to do that while they’re still at the community college level. I personally am very proud that my school is one that offers that here in Wyoming.”
Dayley encouraged her fellow Western students to work hard in college but not to forget the social engagement and personal relationships that make the experience truly rewarding.
“Really, you’re preparing yourself for your life. But…have fun, make those friendships, makes those connections, because that also is a part of education,” she said. “Western does a great job at that. Western is a great balance of growing yourself personally with friendships and with clubs and with activities and involvement in the community, but also (of) academic rigor, always making sure that you’re pushing yourself. So I think finding a good balance between that is going to make you a well-rounded person, which I think is what Western has done for me.”
